As #RIPQueenElizabeth trends on Twitter, a frenzy is raging on following rumours suggesting Queen Elizabeth II has died. Is the queen dead?

Rumours are swirling on Twitter saying that the Queen of England has died. The hashtag appears to have originated as a joke among One Direction fans. Over the past few days, One Direction fans are also believed to have started the hashtags #RIPJeffBezos to suggest Amazon’s CEO had died, as well as #RIPEllenDeGeneres, referring to the popular US host.

A few sources have confirmed that the Queen of England remains in good health and is self-isolating at Windsor Castle. In other words, no, Queen Elizabeth II is not dead.

The Queen’s health was once again last night at the centre of a joke started by social media user who made the hashtag #RIPQueenElizabeth one of the most popular trending topics overnight. More Twitter users have flooded the platform with this hashtag this morning, making it one of the most popular in the UK and tricking other social media users into thinking the queen had actually died.

But this false rumour is not the first we’ve seen on Twitter. Many social media users recalled other times when a similar hashtag claiming the queen had died made it to the trending page of Twitter.

https://twitter.com/aneesa2604/status/1280749914646106113

Queen Elizabeth II is now 94, however, she also proved to be quite fit when she was photographed on the grounds of Windsor Castle riding her 14-year-old horse at the beginning of June. Nothing can be said for sure, but it looks like the queen is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Just as RIPEllen just started trending on Twitter, the whole world panicked. Is America’s favourite TV host truly dead and buried? Well, take a deep breath, relax, we’ve got some answers for you.

If you thought, like many others, that Ellen DeGeneres had just died because #RIPEllen had been trending on Twitter, don’t panic. DeGeneres is alive and well. You might wonder, then, why the weird rumour?

The reason behind Twitter’s trending RIPEllen actually comes from rumours that recently started about DeGeneres’ talk show potentially getting cancelled. The Ellen Show has been a constant in our life for almost 17 years now, and because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many talk shows have been struggling, DeGeneres’ programme included. So far, however, nothing has been officially announced yet.

Recent allegations were made against DeGeneres by supposedly former Ellen Show staff members who stated that the host was a bully behind the scenes. This led to her losing some of her popularity among a section of her US audience.

Back in March, DeGeneres announced via Twitter that she would be shooting her show without a studio audience due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Shortly after, she posted another tweet on 13 March stating that the show had been suspended until 30 March. Now, since 6 April, DeGeneres has been filming the chat show from the comfort of her own home. It remains unclear when exactly the talk show will be filmed in studios with an actual audience.